Amway's Indian Network Marketing Experience

The Indian MLM Journey

MLM was the fastest growing sector of the direct selling industry worldwide. In 1988, the total revenue generated by MLM was $ 12 billion, which doubled to $ 24 billion by 1998. The direct-marketing industry in India was about Rs 6 billion in 1999. This was a growth of 62% over the previous year. In the pre-liberalization era, network marketing in India was usually in the form of various chit fund companies like Sahara India. These had a system of agents, who simultaneously mobilized deposits and appointed sub-agents for further deposit mobilization.

Besides Amway, Oriflame Avon and Tupperware, other players included Lotus Learning, LB Publishers and DK Learning, all selling books. All the direct selling companies were members of the Indian Direct Sellers' Association (IDSA), and were bound by its code of conduct.⁴ While in international markets, a wide range of products was successfully sold directly to homes, this was not the case in India.

In the mature economies, customers were fully aware of the competing products available, whereas in developing economies such as India, awareness levels were comparatively low. Industry observers commented, "The way the market is booming, no direct sale company can meet all its customers only through its own sales force."

However, MLM companies opted for direct selling as against the high visibility retail set up for competitive cosmetics players such as Revlon, aiming to get an image of exclusivity. There was some resistance to the network-marketing concept in India, as Indians preferred the security of a job. Being a salesperson in an MLM setup did not provide this security.

This hampered the company's ability to attract competent personnel. The problem was aggravated by the fact that companies treated direct selling as 'just another' promotional tool, while it was mainly about motivation. One positive aspect of network selling was that it was very convenient for women as the job could be done part-time and at hours of their convenience.

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3] Avon was the world's largest seller of beauty products operating in 135 countries. The company opted for MLM in India while worldwide it was known for its door-to-door direct selling success. Avon's decision to adopt MLM was led by the belief that in India, door-to-door salespeople were treated with a strange indifference. However, this led to Avon losing its focus on its stronghold of having a strong end-user focus. Besides, the company could not make the shift in mindset that multi-level selling required, as MLM required a strong distribution push mentality, which was very different from the hard selling to the end users that Avon was good at. Avon had also significantly lowered its advertising expenditures. Avon's Managing Director, David F Gosling said, "It was a mistake to adopt multi-level system when we weren't good at it. We soon realized that we should stick to what we knew best." He claimed that MLM had simply turned into a recruiting machine and it was difficult to ensure that the distributor down the chain was not thriving on the performance of his recruits without actually performing (selling) himself. Also, Avon held back the much-needed distribution push as the company gradually lost faith in the system. Within two years, Avon switched back to door-to-door selling, putting in place a three-tier network of beauty representatives (BR), beauty advisors (BA) and independent sales managers, which established clearer relationships between the distributor and the company.
4] IDSA primarily focused on promoting consumers' awareness and interest. Its other main objective was to support and protect the character and status of the direct selling industry, and assist in the maintaining of qualitative standards in direct selling. Legitimate direct selling companies were thus concerned with developing, protecting and maintaining a suitable public image and ensured that their salesforce observed company as well as industry standards of performance and complied with ethical and legal requirements.